Internet connectivity has become central to many daily activities. For example, millions of people worldwide use the internet for various bill pay and banking functionalities. Countless more people use the internet for shopping, entertainment, to obtain news, and for myriad other purposes. Moreover, many businesses rely on the internet for communicating with suppliers and customers, as well as providing a resource library for their employees.
However, a large amount of traffic that is communicated by the internet is relatively unimportant or not time critical. For example, electronic mail is typically not time sensitive. Thus, whether electronic mail is delivered instantaneously or delayed by an hour often does not make a difference. Such unimportant communication traffic has the potential to delay and/or disrupt more important traffic.